Michael S. Heiser's Blog, page 73

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 017: Taking the Bible’s Own Context Seriously

In this second episode of the series on Bible study, I discuss what interpreting the Bible “in context” really means — taking the Bible’s own primitive context seriously. Rather than filter the Bible through creeds dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, or even the period of early Christianity, the Bible’s actual context is the one that produced the biblical books — the era stretching from the 2nd millennium BC to the first century AD. All other contexts are foreign to the Bible, no matter how persuasive they are in denominational traditions. The student of the Bible must make all foreign contexts subservient to the Bible’s own context. That means replacing our own worldview with that of the biblical writer living during this ancient time span in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. The way to do that is to immerse ourselves in the intellectual output of those cultures in which the biblical Israelite and later Hellenistic Jews lived when God moved them to write Scripture. The episode ends with suggestions about resources for familiarizing oneself with the literature of all these cultures.

Technorati Tags: ancient, Bible, bible study, context, culture, hellenism, judaism, near east, worldview

Allegorical Interpretation of the Names in Genesis 5

I’ve had several readers over the past several months ask me to comment on a post authored by Chuck Missler entitled, “Meanings of the Names in Genesis 5.” The essay puts forth the idea that the list of names in Genesis 5, stretching from Adam to Noah, can be read as though the writer intended the string of names to describe the gospel story:

 

Hebrew
English


Adam
Man


Seth
Appointed


Enosh
Mortal


Kenan
Sorrow


Mahalalel
The Blessed God


Jared
Shall come down


Enoch
Teaching


Methuselah
His death shall bring


Lamech
The despairing


Noah
Rest, or comfort

 

To be direct, this conclusion doesn’t follow from the data. That is, it’s a non sequitur. The reason is that both the approach and the data are problematic.1 The goal of using this analysis as some sort of proof for a “cosmic code” is also untenable.2 I’ll briefly explain why as we progress, limiting myself to the problems that are best translatable to this environment and audience (that is, there are more problems that require reading Hebrew and being able to show Hebrew, the latter of which I still can’t do in the blog — I can’t even get the transliteration to show correctly, and so the “single-quote” mark used for Hebrew aleph gets turned around – sorry for that, but nothing I try works).

The Methodological Problem

Missler writes in his beginning:

Since the ten Hebrew names are proper names, they are not translated but only transliterated to approximate the way they were pronounced. The meaning of proper names can be a difficult pursuit since direct translations are not readily available. Many study aids, such as conventional lexicons, can prove superficial when dealing with proper names. Even a conventional Hebrew lexicon can prove disappointing. A study of the original roots, however, can yield some fascinating insights.

The flaw here is a failure to honor the writer’s context and intent. If it is true that the names in this genealogy are proper names, then THAT is how the writer wanted them understood. As we have seen with our discussions of ‘adam, a writer can do things (like add the definite article) when he wanted readers to discern that the term wasn’t a proper name, or let the reader think about more than one option by making the term ambiguous. Conversely, when a proper name was the intent, one would remove the definite article to telegraph that meaning was intended. Missler’s take suggests the writer wanted to hide information (encrypt this “code”). Why the NT writers couldn’t figure this code out and then use it as a proof for the messianic nature of Jesus isn’t explained by Missler. A critic could read him as saying he’d figured out something in the text that Paul (or Jesus) couldn’t, since they never bring it up — which is (I hope) something Missler wouldn’t want to say, as that would amount to a claim of new inspiration. But that’s a problem for all this “code” thinking.

Further, that a “root” might mean something is itself problematic. Many words share common consonants (the “root” or base), but that doesn’t mean all the words that share those consonants have a shared, basic meaning. This thinking is known by scholars and those engaged in serious exegesis as the root fallacy. It isn’t hard to show that it’s a bogus approach to understanding words. For example, suppose I try this in English. Do the following words, all of which share common consonants, really all have some meaning that unites them?

BuiLT

BeLT

BoLT

BLoT

Seriously? Not only is this approach fallacious, but (I hope) it serves to make the point that words only have meaning IN CONTEXT. That is, although you can have three or four words that share a root, they actually don’t “mean” anything (much less share a common meaning) until they are put into a clause or sentence by a writer — a placement that gives the words a grammatical and literary context (when that sentence is considered in light of surrounding sentences, paragraphs, etc.).  Words by themselves mean nothing, and so roots of words by themselves mean nothing. And in our case, a writer chose to create a genealogy (there’s the genre / literary context), and so he chose proper names (that’s what goes into a genealogy) and so we can be sure that the writer meant these names to be understood as, well, names.

But Mike (you might object) what about the divine author? He might have meant more! Sure, and if he did, he would have told Paul or some other NT writer under inspiration, so they could have revealed the encrypted prophecy. Do we really want to think God saved that for Chuck Missler? This is what I mean about how these codes can really get you into theological trouble. Now, I don’t think for a minute Chuck Missler wants to go there, but that’s the logic chain, and it’s easy to follow. And just why would God want a prophecy encrypted anyway, when so many other prophecies are fairly transparent — including prophecies about a messiah?

For those interested in words and how they work, including the root fallacy and other fun fallacies, I recommend the following books:

Biblical Words and Their Meaning, by Moises Silva

Exegetical Fallacies, by D. A. Carson

Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation, by Peter Cotterell

 

The Etymological / Philological Problems

Now for the specifics.3 Let’s take the names one by one.

Adam

Missler writes: “The first name, Adam, comes from adomah, and means “man.” As the first man, that seems straightforward enough.” Well, it actually isn’t, as Naked Bible readers know by now. First, the name “Adam” does not “come from” the word ‘adamah (Missler misspells it as adomah, with an “o” vowel, or his source did). The word ‘adamah means “ground” or “land.”

Adam” as a proper name comes from ‘adam, which, as we have seen in earlier posts, can mean “human, humanity, man” or the proper name, “Adam.”4

Seth

Missler says that Seth’s name means “appointed.” This is a possibility, though Hebrew and Semitics scholars disagree. Wenham’s comment is representative:

Though Eve’s explanation of Seth’s name suggests it is derived from the verb shiyt/siyt (“to place, put”) there may be no etymological connection, simply paronomasia.5

If Seth does derive from this Hebrew verb, since the term refers to an object (a person) it would actually be better translated “substitute,” not “appointed” as Missler suggests.

Enosh

Missler writes:

“Seth’s son was called Enosh, which means “mortal,” “frail,” or “miserable.” It is from the root anash: to be incurable; used of a wound, grief, woe, sickness, or wickedness. (It was in the days of Enosh that men began to defile the name of the Living God).

The statement is odd. There is no Scripture citation that in the days of Enosh people began defiling God’s name. I’m guessing that he means Gen 4:26, which most Bibles have as: “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord” (ESV). Missler thinks that a mistranslation, but it isn’t. The difference between that translation and having the verse say that “people began to defile the name of the Lord” is due to the first of two verbs in a sequence being a Hebrew homonym. Like English, Hebrew has distinct words that are spelled exactly the same way but are divergent in meaning (e.g., “lead” [the verb] and “lead” [the metal] — and think of how that also muddies the “root” idea discussed above). To illustrate:

Since Hebrew moves from right to left, one cannot cheat and translate the two as “began to defile.” Not only is “defile” the (potential) first word, but the second one “to call” is quite clear (and has the infinitival lamed prefix). And so, you either go with “began to call” or “defiled to call.” I think the first option makes better sense (the latter really makes no sense at all).

But all that is actually beside the point. Does ‘enosh mean “mortal, frail, miserable”? The word ‘enosh means “man” or “human.” This is clear from its scriptural use, where it is commonly occurs in poetic parallelism with ‘adam. A meaning of “mortal” can work here, so I don’t have a problem with that. But the idea that ‘enosh “comes from” a root that means ”mortal, frail, miserable” is not correct. That idea comes from a different word, ‘enush. Transferring meaning from one to the other is to commit the root fallacy.

Kenan

Missler writes:

Enosh’s son was named Kenan, from which can mean “sorrow,” dirge,” or “elegy.” (The precise denotation is somewhat elusive; some study aids unfortunately presume an Aramaic root synonymous with “Cainan.”) Balaam, looking down from the heights of Moab, employed a pun upon the name of the Kenites when he prophesied their destruction.

This is another odd description. First, Aramaic has little to do with seeing this name as “Cainan.” The fact is that this name is spelled qynn, the first three consonants of which are identical to qyn (“Cain”). The Septuagint transliterated the name as “Cainan.” The only difference in the consonants (Hebrew originally had no vowels) is the final “n”. Scholars disagree on its role in the name. Some take it as a diminutive (in which case it would be an appendage that means “little,” and so “little Cain” would be the meaning). There is precedent for an “n” diminutive in biblical Hebrew, but scholars have not found the argument compelling enough for consensus. And the option invariably takes us into the issue of whether the genealogies of Gen 4 and 5 came from a single source or not, which is well beyond the scope of what we’re doing here. Another option is that the final “n” is (in academese) “hypocoristic” (a term that in effect means “it’s a nickname for Cain”). I have no idea what Missler is angling for in the reference to Balaam. I suppose that he wants to connect the spelling of qynn with qyny (“Kenites”), but that wouldn’t explain the final “n” anyway. And what Balaam was doing isn’t of value for what the writer of Genesis 5 was doing when writing a genealogy. The contexts are entirely different.

The fact that no one is really sure how to take the final “n” also points to the fact that no one really knows what the term would mean *if it were not a proper name*. Missler’s suggestion (he gives no source) apparently comes from taking the meaning of the noun qynh (an altogether different word) and transferring that meaning to this name. Again, the root fallacy raises its head.

Mahalalel

Missler writes that the name “means ‘blessed’ or ‘praise; and El, the name for God. Thus, Mahalalel means ‘the Blessed God’.” This rendering is scarcely possible in light of Hebrew morphology. The verbal root is h-l-l, and does mean “to praise.” The prefixed “m” indicates that this form is a participle (unlike the other examples he gives). That means “El” (“God”) is its object. The name means “praising God” — which does not fit at all with Missler’s allegorical interpretation of the sequence.

Yarad

Scholars would agree with Missler’s note that this name has the same consonants (y-r-d) as the Hebrew verb yarad (“to go/come down”). The problem here is that this is a proper name. That the consonants are the same does not prove that the meaning of the verb with the same consonants is to be transferred to the name. A convenient modern parallel is illustrative: are we to assume that RUSH Limbaugh’s name “means” to hurry? Or should RUSH be understood as “a tufted marsh plant,” or perhaps “a fraternity’s recruitment tradition”?6 I hope you get the point. The meaning is therefore uncertain. Other issues contribute to this uncertainty. First, the same consonants occur in 1 Chron 4:18 (also a genealogy) vocalized as Yered. Second, the consonants, if understood verbally, could also be translated as a command “Go down!” Third, Akkadian parallels to the term suggest a meaning of “slave” or “servant,” though not all scholars accept those parallels as decisive here (See Hess’ book in footnote 5, pp. 69-70).

Enoch

Missler notes that Enoch (spelled with consonants ch[h-dot]-n-k) means “‘teaching,’ or ‘commencement’.” This is a bit misleading in that he gets each meaning from a different word (or, at least that is the case with respect to the Semitic data).The two possible roots are also technically not in the same language, though they are both Semitic. There is a Hebrew verb ch-n-k that means “to train up, dedicate,” and a West Semitic verb of the same spelling that means “to introduce, initiate.” That the latter and not the former (the choice of Missler’s allegorical string) may be the best option here is suggested by the context of the same name in Gen 4:17, where Enoch was the first offspring of Cain, and the namesake of the city built by Cain. Now, if it be presumed that this was the first city, then the “initiate” meaning would go much better as a meaning. Since no other cities are mentioned in Genesis prior to this one, it appears that the writer is casting this city as the first one built. There is no rationale I can see, other than to make the allegory “work,” for Missler to choose “teaching” over the other. At any rate, it’s far from secure.

Methuselah

Missler writes:

Enoch named his son to reflect this prophecy. The name Methuselah comes from two roots: muth, a root that means “death”; and from shalach, which means “to bring,” or “to send forth.” Thus, the name Methuselah signifies, “his death shall bring.”

This is incorrect. Although Missler has a footnote for this claim, the sources are not Hebrew scholars, hence the error. The first part of the name is the problem. Hebrew scholars know that the first part of the name is not muth (more properly, moth, if the meaning would he “death”), but rather Hebrew mt (“man”; this lemma occurs just over 20 times; see e.g., Deut 2:34; 3:6).7 That mt and not an original muth/moth is the first part is known because of rules of Hebrew orthography (“spelling”) and vowel reduction. An original “historically long” vowel such as required by muth/moth will not reduce to shewa, as it is in the Hebrew text of Methuselah’s name.8  The meaning of Methuselah’s name is therefore “man of sh-l-ch.” Missler assumes the second element is a verb, but there are actually a number of translation options, since there is more than one sh-l-ch in biblical Hebrew (and wider Semitic). The most plausible is “weapon, spear” (see this sh-l-ch in Joel 2:8; Neh 4:17; 2 Sam 18:14). The name “Methuselah” would then mean “man of the spear” (i.e., “warrior”). Other scholars see a reference to a river sh-l-ch or a deity by that name. The one thing it cannot mean is what Missler suggests.

Lamech

I have to be honest. The treatment of this name is egregious. Though I appreciate Missler’s wide influence as a catalyst for people to get into the Bible, what he does here would get him in serious trouble in a hermeneutics or exegesis class, much less a Hebrew class. Missler elicits a meaning for this name on the basis that it sounds like an ENGLISH word (“lament”)! He writes:

Methuselah’s son was named Lamech, a root still evident today in our own English word, “lament” or “lamentation.” Lamech suggests “despairing.”

No language in human history can be interpreted this way. Just because a Chinese word might aurally sound like a word in my language (or any other language) doesn’t mean it shares the same meaning as the word from the other language!

It isn’t hard to show how deeply flawed this idea is. Anyone who has studied another language besides their own knows that the new language has similar sounding words or vowel-consonant combinations to words in their native language, and yet there is absolutely no relation in meaning. Put bluntly: Hebrew and English are not the same language. But for those to whom that isn’t obvious, let me illustrate.

Consider these three Hebrew words: yam, sod, regel.  Do they really correspond to English words for “sweet potato”; “dirt”; “to squirm”?  Hardly. They mean, in order, “sea”; “council”; “foot/leg.”  I could provide hundreds of examples from a range of languages to demonstrate the absurdity of this approach. Anyone who has studied a language other than English could also contribute their own list.

I should add that the Hebrew word translated “lament” is qiynah. No aural resemblance to Lamech.

The reality is that Lamech has no known, certain “meaning” so far as scholars can determine. Here is a sampling of the speculation:

Like “Abel” for hebel, “Lamek” is the pausal form of “Lemek,” but unlike “Abel,” not certainly of Hebrew derivation. It may be connected with Sumerian lumga, a title of Ea, as patron deity of song and music, but this is very doubtful. Other suggestions based on Arabic include “strong youth” or “oppressor.”9

Noah

This name is well understood. It means “rest” as Missler notes.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us? It quite clearly means that Missler’s allegorical “sentence” or prophecy (or “code”) in Genesis 5 is bogus.

I hope readers see the larger point, however. WHY would God want to encrypt a message that is found elsewhere plainly in sight? The whole idea makes no sense. Frankly, if we need these sorts of “codes” to stimulate us to believe that God was capable of prompting men to write down revelation for human posterity, there’s a serious problem with our faith and theological thinking.  If one believes in God, and that such a God can do something as simple as prompt humans to write something down, and then further prompt them to preserve it, inspiration doesn’t need some magical justification. It’s a simple, reasonable idea.

 

 

Let me say that, while I think Missler’s essay is misguided and deficient in terms of understanding Hebrew grammar and philology, Missler is to be commended for prompting so many lay people to get interested in studying the Bible. I personally know a number of people whose interest in Scripture is directly traced to Missler’s influence. ↩
Many readers will know what I think of Bible codes in general. The idea that the Bible has embedded codes that somehow escaped the attention of inspired OT and NT authors when they themselves comment or quote the Bible is, to say the least, theologically troublesome. The goal of inspiration / producing the Bible was clear communication, not encryption. Every code argument I’ve seen fails to consider the multiplicity of manuscript data, which goes far beyond differences in words. Rather, it extends to phrases and arrangement (micro and macro) of large blocks of Scripture content — e.g., differences between LXX and MT. ↩
The screenshots come from Logos Bible Software’s Dictionary of Biblical Languages: Hebrew. For readers who know some Hebrew and can follow transliteration, I recommend Richard Hess’s scholarly work on this subject: Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1 to 11. ↩
Incidentally, ‘adam is one of several words that share the root consonants:  ’-d-m (aleph, daleth, mem). Others include ‘edom (red, Edom – Edom had reddish dirt) and ‘adom (the color red or blood — but of course not all things that are red have anything to do with blood). And for those familiar with my critiques of the ancient astronaut nonsense of Zecharia Sitchin, please note that the Sumerian scholar A. W. Sjoberg (he was professor of Sumerian at Penn when I was there) notes that Sumerian á-dam is not actually Sumerian; rather, he demonstrates that it was brought into Sumerian after being *borrowed from* Canaan! See A. W. Sjoberg, “Eve and the Chameleon.” Pages 217-225 in In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature in Honor of G.W. Ahlstrom (W.B. Barrick & A.R. Spencer, eds.; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984). ↩
Gordon J. Wenham, vol. 1, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15, 115. The word “paranomasia” is a literary term for word play. Wikipedia: “a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.” ↩
Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003. ↩
See Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11, p. 70;  Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary, p. 128; Sarna, Genesis; Jewish Publication Society Commentary, p. 43; Hamilton, Genesis 1-17; New International Commentary of the Old Testament, p. 258. ↩
See Jouon-Muraoka, Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Sec. 29b. ↩
Wenham, p. 112. The Arabic term alluded to by Hamilton would be yalmak, “powerful man”. ↩

Technorati Tags: Enoch, Genesis 5, lamech, methuselah, , noah

Naked Bible Podcast: New Series on Bible Study Begins

I just uploaded the latest episode of the podcast. Wasn’t sure I’d get to it this weekend with all the “last minute” MEMRA stuff, but I did. I expanded my “Heiser’s Laws for Bible Study” essay into an introduction for a series on learning how to move beyond merely reading the Bible toward actual study.

I should add that this podcast series will be unique to the podcast; the material won’t appear on the blog any time soon.

Modern Critical Thinking About the Bible? Or, Should 2 Timothy 2:15 Be Restricted to Ancient Readers?

A recent guest post over at the Patheos blog author by Dr. David Lincicum, will likely be of interest to Naked Bible readers: Lament for a Maternal Home (or, Is There No Place for Believing Criticism in Evangelicalism?). I appreciated the essay. Though I don’t know Dr. Lincicum’s work or any of his positions on issues of NT interpretation, I’ve lived several of the experiences he relates in his lament.  It truly is discouraging to strive to make sure one’s positions are text-driven only to have the very audience you’re trying to serve look upon you with suspicion if what you say doesn’t align with some home-spun doctrinal position or a well-meaning, but badly under-informed, sermon.

Those concerned with theological and interpretive honesty are compelled by certain commitments: honoring God’s use of real people on the ground, at their own time and place, to produce this thing we say is inspired; interpreting the Bible in its own intellectual context; and taking the primary text as it is, preferring it over translations, acknowledging that the content at times points to editorial activity and arrangement and literary intent. It’s hard to believe this has no place in many churches that profess to take the Bible seriously. For those who feel called by God to devote their lives and gifts to the academic study of Scripture, pariah status was unexpected. I never thought I’d have to pay a price for sticking to the text, but I have. But I’m used to it now, and am unrepentant.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on the essay.

 

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 015: The Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor 11

The episode page is located here, or you can listen via iTunes or the archive.

Technorati Tags: Bible, communion, Lord's Supper, podcast, theology

Jesus and Twitter

Thanks to Martin for sending this to me. Thought it was clever and funny:

Technorati Tags: Jesus, twitter

Is ‘adam “Adam”?

I’ve been thinking (still) about the historical Adam issue. It surprises me that I haven’t seen anyone (yet — perhaps one of you knows an exception) address the grammatical-syntactical issue as it relates to “Adam” in Genesis 1-5. I speak specifically of the fact that Hebrew grammar does not tolerate a definite article with a proper personal noun. I can’t help wondering how this might influence the discussion, so I thought I’d share this with readers.

For those not acquainted with Hebrew grammar, like English, you cannot have the definite article (the word “the”) with a proper personal name. For instance, I’m not “the Mike”; I’m just “Mike.” I brought up this issue before on the blog as it relates to the Hebrew noun satan in the OT. All of the occurrences of this term in Job 1-2 and Zech 3 have the definite article, and so satan is not a proper personal noun (“Satan”) in the OT by rule of Hebrew grammar.1 The well-known Hebrew Joüon-Muraoka biblical Hebrew reference grammar (Par. 137.b) puts it this way:

Proper nouns are in themselves determinate, since they designate unique beings. Therefore they do not take any determining element. Thus they cannot be followed by a determinate (nor indeterminate, § 131 n–o) genitive. Likewise they do not take the article, apart from some whose appellative value is still being felt …

In other words, when a noun has come to be understood as a proper personal name, the article is not used, since its definite character (in this case, as a person) is understood.

All this means that the Hebrew word ‘adam, frequently translated indiscriminately as “Adam” in English Bibles, could (should?) be translated as follows:

1. ‘adam with the definite article (ha-’adam) = avoiding the proper name, and so:  “humankind”; “the man”; “humanity”; “man” (definite collective); “the human”; or “this human” (with the article having demonstrative force).

2. ‘adam with no definite article could be rendered either generally as “a man” or “a human,” or as the proper name, “Adam.”

What would this make Genesis look like? Perhaps a better question might be, “How much of the early chapters of Genesis could be read generically as the story of “humankind” (including the female human)?” Or, “at what point does the text require us to use the proper name “Adam”? What follows is experimental, so we can see ourselves. I’ll start with Gen 1:26, boldfacing ha-’adam (the noun with the article) and using blue when ‘adam is without the article. You’ll notice the usage without the article is rare. References to “a woman” are in pink. Alternate words for “man” (e.g., ‘ish) are in green.

Genesis 1

26 Then God said, “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27    So God created the humans in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 2

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

4    These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the human of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the human  whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the human and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the human, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that this human should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the human to see what he would call them. And whatever the human called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The human gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for a human there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the human he made into a woman and brought her to the human. 23 Then the human said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called “woman,”

because she was taken out of “man” (the word here is not ‘adam, but ‘ish)

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the human and his woman were both naked and were not ashamed.

Thoughts

This brings us to Genesis 3 and the Fall, of course, but a few things are apparent, or at least worth thinking about:

1. It’s quite possible to read Genesis 1-2 without thinking that the two humans in the story are specific people.

2. This generic flavor can be easily maintained in chapter 3 until 3:21 (fully through the fall episode), where the woman is named (chavvah – there is no definite article;”Eve”). However, 3:20 could be rendered thusly:

20The human called his wife’s name “Life,” because she was the mother of all living.

Of more difficulty is 3:21, where ‘adam lacks the article and is awkward to translate as anything other than a proper name:

21And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

The problem here, of course, is that the consonantal text behind “for Adam” (le-’adam) could be pointed with a definite article (the pointing was added in the Middle Ages), since the prefixed preposition subsumes the place of the patach vowel that goes with the “h” definite article when it “collides” with the article in spelling (i.e., it could be pointed la-’adam and thus rendered “When the Lord God made for the human  and for his wife …”). All we have is the Masoretic tradition with respect to taking the form “as is” without the definite article.

3. Once we get out of Genesis 3, Adam is very likely a proper name in the following verses:

4:25 – Adam had sexual relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to another son. (no definite article, plus the children are given proper names)

5:1 – This is the written account of the descendants of Adam. When God created a human, and made them to be like himself (both forms lack the article, but the second cannot be a proper name, since the referent it pluralized “them”; Genesis 5:2′s occurrence of ‘adam without the article must be taken the same way for the same reason: “He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them ‘human‘.”)

5:3 – When Adam was 130 years old, he became the father of a son … (the son is named, so it makes sense for the ‘adam with no article to be specific in meaning as a proper name).

5:4 – After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters (ditto the above reasoning)

5:5 – Adam lived 930 years, and then he died. (humanity is older than 930 years, so this is a proper name!)

4. Even if ‘adam is generic, there are features of the story that are (not surprisingly) un-scientific — that is, they cannot accommodate to evolutionary theory (e.g., the human is able to speak immediately after creation). Sure, there are imaginative ways to explain that, based on certain presumptions (“speech was enabled as part of whatever God did or planned at some evolutionary breakthrough to homo sapiens, and so the story reflects that”), but that is a theological statement (which isn’t a sin, mind you).

5. You have to wonder why there is a switch to ‘ish from ‘adam in Gen 2:23-24. The word appears in Gen 3, 4 in some “husbandly” contexts, but is that how to see it in 2:23-24?

In a future post, we’ll see how this looks if we assume the creation stories of Gen 1 and Gen 2 are distinct, having been written by different hands at different times (deriving from sources or not). Finally, I plan to take a look at the clues within the text as a whole that could genuinely point to non-Adamic humans and how Genesis 1-2 could be read differently taking the text just as it is.

Again, just thinking out loud, so to speak.

See the video here illustrating this point via computer searching. ↩

Technorati Tags: Adam, article, definite, Genesis, grammar, hebrew

Faithlife and the Faithlife Study Bible

I’m happy to finally be able to announce two new items produced by Logos Bible Software: Faithlife (see About Faithlife) and the Faithlife Study Bible.

Faithlife is a social web community platform that provides far more security than sites like Facebook. It is specifically aimed to help people create groups and communities focused on church relationships, Bible study, small groups, and anything else involving study of the Scriptures. From the website:

Your Faithlife profile connects you with the rest of the Faithlife community, so you’re in touch with your church, friends, and Christian leaders online. Best of all, it’s private—nobody sees your Faithlife profile unless you give them permission.

Readers will recall that, in the past, I’ve used Google groups for things like reading groups here on the Naked Bible. Faithlife didn’t exist then, but it’s my choice now.

The Faithlife Study Bible is a project I’ve been quite involved with. It’s a digital study Bible that has no boundaries — that is, although it has close to three million words of notes in it already, it will continue to develop and expand. It’s not bound to book covers. I contributed (I think – just a guess) 400-500,000 words (Pentateuch, Psalm 82, Proverbs 8, and lots of “sidebar” essays on various topics. including my favorite areas of biblical studies, the unseen world and Israelite religion).

Both these items are FREE. Please join Faithlife as a member. I didn’t know when it would actually launch so, although I have a group feature ready for my MEMRA courses, I may have time to adapt to Faithlife. I will let all those enrolled about that if I get the time to set things up before Module 1 begins.  But for the rest of you, have a look — and make sure to get the study Bible and read about its features. Just go to the study Bible site and put the word “FREE” into the coupon code box.

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 014: Lord’s Supper and 1 Corinthians 8-10, Pt.1

This episode transitions the discussion of a biblical theology of the Lord’s Supper to the primary passage in the New Testament on the topic: 1 Corinthians 11. The episode focuses on the context of 1 Corinthians 8-10 for informing what Paul says about the Lord’s Supper in chapter 11.

Technorati Tags: 1 Corinthians, communion, Lord's Supper, lord's table, love feast, unworthily

Naked Bible Back Online!

My thanks to the technical service at my host, Bluehost.com. Their customer service is awesome. I wish I could say the same for the wizards of smart at WordPress, whose upgrade served as the catalyst to the recent problems. Lord willing the next upgrade will be friendlier.

Disruptions like this are why you should follow me on Twitter. I really don’t use Facebook, so Twitter was a great means of telling people about the blog’s demise. Twitter is my go-to resource in such scenarios — so please follow me @msheiser!